View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The Research Repository @ WVU (West Virginia University) Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2012 A Question of Life or Death: Suicide and Survival in the Union Army Kathleen Anneliese Logothetis West Virginia University Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Logothetis, Kathleen Anneliese, "A Question of Life or Death: Suicide and Survival in the Union Army" (2012). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 4888. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/4888 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. 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A Question of Life or Death: Suicide and Survival in the Union Army Kathleen Anneliese Logothetis Thesis submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Ph.D., Chair Brian Luskey, Ph.D. Katherine Aaslestad, Ph.D. Department of History Morgantown, West Virginia 2012 Keywords: Civil War; Suicide; Soldier Experience; Union Army Copyright 2012 Kathleen Anneliese Logothetis ABSTRACT A Question of Life or Death: Suicide and Survival in the Union Army Kathleen Anneliese Logothetis Studying the Civil War soldier involves a quest to comprehend how they soldiers understood and managed their war experiences. Under the conditions of soldier life and the horrific violence of Civil War battles, mental trauma and suicide would not be unthinkable consequences. Union soldiers did commit suicide during the war, sometimes in response to the trauma of battle, hospital, or prison camp. However, suicide in fact was a very small percentage of casualties in the Union army, representing less than one percent of the losses during the war. This thesis examines the dual nature of suicide in the Union army. On one hand, the transformation from civilian into soldier and the traumatic experiences related to military life greatly affected men. The first year of enlistment proved the most difficult, particularly for men between the ages of twenty-six and thirty. One hundred and one cases of suicide are analyzed both contextually and statistically in order to further understand the experience and decisions of the Civil War soldier. On the other hand, the low suicide rate suggests that most soldiers managed their war time experiences. Men relied on a “cultural toolbox” of religious beliefs, established methods of facing and mourning death, ideas about courage and masculinity, and ties to the civilian world to understand and act within their role as a soldier. By focusing on suicide, the analysis centers on the possibility of failure in negotiating the experience of war, instead of the successes most historians have emphasized. In addition, instead of ideas such as liberty, freedom, and country, soldiers understood their experiences and persevered because of social norms and behaviors. The motivation for suicides as well as the support system which prevented them came from a soldier’s interactions as a family and community member, as well as a part of a volunteer army fighting a war. Questions about life and death are not always grandiose; they can come from basic understandings of and connections to one’s world. Soldiers felt the impact of both positive and negative influences; using suicide as a focal point allows for an examination of how soldiers negotiated trauma and wartime conditions to survive. iii Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………….. iv Chapter 1: Prelude to Self-Destruction: Antebellum Suicide and the Environment of War……………………..1 Suicide in the American Mind……………………………………………2 The Experience of Combat………………………………………………12 Mental Stress in the Union Army………………………………………..19 Chapter 2: “To Be or Not To Be”: Suicide Among Union Soldiers…………………………………………27 Suicides in the Union Army……………………………………………...29 Was Combat Experience Enough to Cause Suicide? ……………………50 Chapter 3: “Whether ‘tis Nobler in the Mind”: The Soldier’s “Cultural Toolbox” and Wartime Survival………………62 The “Cultural Toolbox” of the Union Soldier……………………………64 Conclusion: The “Cultural Toolbox” and Suicide……………………………...91 Appendix………………………………………………………………………..97 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….100 iv Introduction In September 1861, just days after enlisting with the 33rd Illinois Infantry and days before following his unit to the front lines, Henry Johnson drowned himself in a lake.1 A wounded soldier lying on Marye’s Heights after the Battle of Fredericksburg took his own life to prevent his capture as a prisoner.2 In Memphis, an ill soldier “became violently insane” and jumped out a fourth-story window.3 Soldiers at Andersonville prison deliberately stepped over the “dead line” hoping to be shot by Confederate guards.4 And R. Milton Smiley committed suicide just one month before his regiment mustered out and went home in 1865.5 These are not the traditional stories told of death in the Civil War, of battlefield casualties, of dying from the horrific wounds of war, or of the thousands of men who died from disease. These are Union soldiers who, perhaps becoming desperate in their surroundings, took the decision into their own hands to become a casualty of war. Studying the Civil War soldier involves a quest to comprehend how they understood and managed their war experiences. My research explores the question of 1 Albert O’Connell Marshall, Army Life from a Soldier’s Journal: Incidents, Sketches and Record of a Union Soldier’s Army Life, in Camp and Field, 1861-1864 (Joliet, IL: A.O. Marshall, 1883. Accessed February 3, 2011, American Civil War Diaries and Letters): 30-31. 2 Thomas H. Evans, “The Cries of the Wounded were Piercing and Horrible,” Civil War Times Illustrated 7 (July 1968): 33; George C. Rable, “It Is Well That War Is So Terrible: The Carnage at Fredericksburg,” In The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decisions on the Rappahannock, 48-79, edited by Gary Gallagher (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995): 58. 3 Charles B. Kimball, History of Battery “A,” First Illinois Light Artillery Volunteers (Chicago: Cushing Printing Company, 1899. http://babel.hathitrust.org): 51. 4 Gerald F. Lindermann, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: The Free Press, 1987): 260; William Marvel, Andersonville: The Last Depot (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994): 190. 5 Illinois. Military and Naval Department, Jasper N. Reece, and Isaac Hughes Elliott, Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois, Volume IV, Containing Reports for the Years 1861-1866 (Springfield, IL: Phillips Bros, State Printers, 1901): 674, GoogleBooks; Terrence J. Winschel, The Civil War Diary of a Common Soldier: William Wiley of the 77th Illinois Infantry (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001): 175. v whether and why they killed themselves as a result of those experiences. Knowing the conditions of soldier life and the horrific violence of Civil War battles, I expected that the armies would see a relatively large number of suicides during the war years.6 Perhaps I also unconsciously grounded this assumption in the experience of the modern military where suicide is a far more frequent occurrence. Veterans from our recent armed conflicts, particularly the Gulf Wars and the conflicts in the Middle East, exhibit high rates of suicide and mental/behavioral issues highlighted by the media. In addition to my own preconceived notions, a survey of antebellum reactions to and discussions of suicide also implied a heightened awareness and growing fear of increased suicide rates. What I found, however, was that suicide in fact was a very small percentage of casualties in the Union army, representing less than one percent of the losses during the war.7 But these cases can provide insight into what soldiers experienced and how they managed their military service during the Civil War. The environment of war, the sights, sounds, feelings, and actions of military service had a definite impact on soldiers. Most were able to survive despite experiencing mental stress, but those who could not withstand the trauma of their service provide a new opportunity to understand the Civil War soldier. The low suicide rate required that I investigate why more cases did not happen and examine what elements restrained soldiers from resorting to desperate action, in addition to the suicides and their causes. As a result, the chapters of this thesis focus on two sides of the same story. Chapter one delves into the world of the Civil War soldier by discussing the perceptions of suicide in antebellum society and the experience of warfare. Historically, 6 I narrowed my focus to the Union army due to available sources. 7 For full explanation of the suicide rate see page 27. vi Americans viewed suicide negatively, but in the antebellum years increased discussion of the topic created shifts as the act of suicide was criminalized, sentimentalized, politicized, and medicalized. Becoming a soldier and entering the world of war challenged men’s identity and worldview. While most men survived their time in the army, evidence of mental stress and trauma indicates that their experiences had negative effects upon their minds and bodies. This study provides the base for the contextual and statistical analysis in chapter two of details derived from suicides in the Union Army.